Joe Gerstandt | keynote speaker, freedom fighter, freak-flag flier

I have over the past few weeks found myself engaged in a number of open conversations with primarily HR folks about diversity and inclusion.  I love it that I continue to find robust conversations involving lots of people in different roles around this set of issues. I think that there is a growing awareness that this set of issues has very real implications toward our ability to move forward.

There are, however, a few common themes that seem to consistently pop up in these conversations that concern me.  I thought I would just close the week out by shining some light on each of them…

1 | the respect thing

A lot of people think that diversity and inclusion is simply about being nice to people.  I do not have anything against being nice to people, I can do kumbaya with the best of them. I dig kumbaya. But that is not what D&I work is really about. It is not about everyone being friends.  We are not all going to like each other. This work is largely about removing barriers to tangible and intangible differences entering the workspace and proactively using difference to drive better results. Some people do not believe that there are any barriers today. Some people believe in ghosts.  Some people think that the only real barriers to difference today are mean people (or hateful, or ignorant, or prejudiced, or bigoted, etc.).  Everything would be fixed if we would just all respect each other. This I think is very problematic, for a couple of reasons:

• It is rooted in an antiquated and inaccurate understanding of human beings.  It is certainly not human nature to drop a hate crime on somebody or to have hatred towards somebody simply because of the social groups that they belong to. It is however, human nature to judge, label, and categorize people especially when we do not have much actual information to go on.  Saying that you are a “non-judgmental” person does not change this.  Being a “good person” does not change this. It is not actually about you, it is about your brain and how it functions.  There are whole big bunches of things that your brain does without your participation and without your permission, this is just one of them…regardless of your aspirations to be non-judgmental, your brain is always going to be relentlessly judgmental.  A big part of D&I is about pushing back on this and working intentionally to make sure that our decision making about people is more based on fact and less based on fiction.  We have learned a great deal about the human brain in the past decade and this information desperately needs to find its way into HR, D&I, leadership and organizational development and other related disciplines.
• This is how we let ourselves off the hook.  In my experience, most people inside a typical organization do not think that D&I has anything to do with them…because they are a good person…not a mean, hateful, bigoted person.  And they are sometimes actually offended by the idea that they should have to sit through a conversation about diversity because it implies that they are a bad person and need help becoming a good person. If we want to do a better job of getting everyone involved in this effort it is has to framed as being about human behavior, human nature, and evidence based decision making rather than being about whether you are a good person or a bad person.

2 | the tolerance thing

Is there any other body of work in the world with such small aspirations?  Do any of your organizations have the financial goal of not going bankrupt?  Do you have the sales goal of not ending up with more products than you started with?  Do you have the engagement goal of having people just actually show up for work?  None of your employees are shooting for “being tolerated” by their co-workers, and it is simply unacceptable that this continues to be one of the most prevalent ideas associated with D&I efforts. Inclusion is activist, it goes way beyond the idea of tolerance. The language that we use in this conversation is very important.

3 | “stop focusing on differences!”

Sometimes this is what I hear from HR folks.  Some of them do not even want to use the word “diversity” any more.  And I get it.  Not focusing on difference is easier…I know this as well as anyone does.  But it is dishonest.  D&I work is not about making the workplace nicer, gentler or more comfortable…it is about making it more honest and improving outcomes.  And the truth is this…we are different.  Every single one of us is different AND…that difference is valuable.  Ignoring, denying, or hiding it is dishonest and it is wasteful.  Difference is one of the most powerful natural resources that we have access to in our organizations, but we continue to be very wasteful of it. We need to get better at focusing on both differences and commonalities.

4 | “just hire the best person for the job!”

Great in theory, but this is also rooted in that antiquated an inaccurate understanding of human beings and human decision making.  (see #1)  I am not sure where the idea comes from that we are actually good at “hiring the best person for the job.”  I do not know that I have seen any evidence that the average organization is good at: a) identifying what it actually needs in the way of “talent”, b) measuring said “talent” to inform their decision making, c) mapping this to actual outcomes.  In addition to this, work is increasingly being done by groups, teams and networks.  Individual ability or talent (which we cannot measure very well to begin with) is actually becoming less critical.  It still matters, but there are other variables that are increasing in importance…robust relational skills, does this person bring something new to the group (perspective, experience, etc.), etc.

5 | “tracking categories is completely ridiculous”!

This one always throws me for a loop coming from HR folks.  HR folks seem to love numbers.  You cannot walk into an HR conference without somebody’s metric poking you in the eye.  Metric this, metric that, if you can’t measure it you can’t manage it…this is the kind of thing that I usually hear from HR folks, but they do not want to measure diversity?  I am actually not a big fan of measurement, because I think that we almost always use it poorly.  We overestimate what we can actually measure and when we can find a way to put some numbers to something that is usually all we focus on.  And we cannot actually measure diversity, it is an intangible…and just because we have folks from this social group or that social group does not mean that we are actually inclusive of what they have to offer…I get it, I do. I still think that this stuff needs to be tracked.  It can be an indicator of progress (or the lack of progress); it might shed some light on organizational blind spots.  And I think that we can actually make that data more meaningful if it is paired with people’s stories and experiences.

6 | “diversity of thought matters, “who” you are does not”!

I talk a lot about diversity of thought.  I think it is a really important and timely topic. It is usually pretty well received, but sometimes folks are a little bit too zealous about the idea of cognitive diversity.  They go on to say that diversity of thought is the only kind of difference that matters and that “that other stuff” is all nonsense.  Sorry to be blunt here, but that is delusional.  You do not have to look very far to find lots of evidence that “who we are” matters a lot and always has.  Saying that who you are matters is picking a fight with reality.  In addition to that, you cannot completely detach diversity of thought from diversity of identity.  Who I am, where I come from, how I am educated, what my life experience has been like is one of the things that will inform how I think and how I see the world…what knowledge I have, what perspectives and heuristics that I have.  Cognitive diversity and identity diversity are two different things, but there is a considerable amount of overlap and interplay between the two.

Because clarity is our friend.

Have a good weekend.

Be good to each other.

-joe